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Richie Valdez
You may have missed this one unless you were associated with a DC-area gang in 2010-2011. That's when DC police and ATF agents created this fictional rapper and his Northeast Washington recording studio, Manic Enterprises, as part of a year-long sting on drug dealers and gun-runners.
According to a Washington Examiner report, the sting resulted in 70 arrests and the seizure of 161 firearms, 80 pounds of meth, 21 pounds of cocaine, 1.25 gallons of PCP, and 24 pounds of weed, ecstasy, and heroin. Operation Manic Enterprises had played itself up so well that some dealers even solicited studio time.
Caucasian D.C. Police Sgt. Dale Sutherland, a veteran of undercover work, posed as Manic Enterprises impresario Richie Valdez. Then he left the force to become a preacher, started a podcast called “Cops, Criminals and Christ,” and then founded the Constitutional Defense Fund (CDF) which fights to eliminate gun laws and restrictions on firearms, which seems against everything he did to get guns off the street as a police detective.
